Welcome to Our Research Archive
Search and filter by content type, issue area, author, and keyword
- ✕ Clear Filter
- AI (1)
- Article (4)
- Articles (995)
- book (1)
- Climate (243)
- climate change (1)
- data dashboard (14)
- electricity (3)
- energy (247)
- Events (25)
- op-ed (2)
- Podcast (3)
- Post (2)
- Puerto Rico (1)
- Report (2)
- Reports (16)
- science (81)
- science funding (10)
- science trust (10)
- technology (555)
- testimony (1)
- Working paper (1)
October 8, 2024
Weather Attribution Alchemy
In the aftermath of many high profile extreme weather events we see headlines like the following: For those who closely follow climate science and the assessments of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), such headlines can be difficult to make sense of because neither the IPCC nor the underlying scientific literature comes anywhere close…
October 7, 2024
Are Hurricanes Getting Worse?
That “climate change” — undefined and usually unquantified — is making weather patterns more adverse is a given among the chattering classes, but it always is useful to examine the actual underlying data. A prominent example appeared in a recent column in The Hill, in which reporter Rachel Frazin argues that “Climate change is making hurricanes like Hurricane Helene more…
October 4, 2024
DuckDuckGo’s Bold Play to Weaken Competition
Give DuckDuckGo (DDG) credit for its spirit. After 15 years of trying, the search engine ranks fifth globally. But it has stagnated and even DDG admits it isn’t on par with Google. Now, rather than innovating to surpass its competitors, DDG is asking the government to force Google to hand over the secret sauce that made Google the market…
October 4, 2024
23andMe: Privacy and Property Protection in Bankruptcy
Kristen V. Brown, a staff writer at The Atlantic in a piece last week. I wouldn’t argue against being concerned, but there may be more privacy protection in place than Brown believes. Certainly if my views about contract law and property pertain in these contexts. But let’s see. The problem is not new. A data-intensive…
October 3, 2024
The Future of Small Business Financing (with Anthony Matos)
How is technology revolutionizing access to capital for small businesses? What challenges do these businesses face in securing funding? And what broader role does technology play in improving their access to capital? On the latest episode of Explain to Shane, Shane interviews Anthony Matos, CEO and cofounder of Shubox, a platform designed to help small businesses access capital…
October 3, 2024
Weaponizing Peer Review
In their book, Merchants of Doubt, Naomi Oreskes and Eric Conway argue that scientists “know bad science when they see it”: “It’s science that is obviously fraudulent — when data have been invented, fudged, or manipulated. Bad science is where data is have been cherry-picked— when some data have been deliberately left out—or it’s impossible for…
October 2, 2024
Online Platforms and the Wall of Separation Between Government and Private Action
The US Supreme Court’s 2024 opinions in Moody v. NetChoice, Murthy v. Missouri, and National Rifle Association v. Vullo collectively should make it harder for plaintiffs to treat social media platforms as state-actor defendants for removing content the government dislikes. As previously explained, these decisions were important in recent appellate court rulings rejecting claims by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and his Children’s Health Defense organization that YouTube and…
October 1, 2024
Legislative Patent Reform Efforts Come Up Short—Yet Again
“The definition of insanity,” Albert Einstein supposedly said, “is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.” If true, then the advocates of legislative patent reform must be certifiable. As I’ve detailed in this space, the thus-far quixotic efforts of lawmakers—led chiefly by the bipartisan tag-team of Sens. Chris Coons (D-DE) and Thom Tillis…
October 1, 2024
The American Growth Imperative
Every so often, I come across a policy analysis that is so quantitatively robust and crystal clear in its presentation, that it clarifies how I think. Today is one of those days. In a just-released report the Economic Innovation Group — a non-partisan think tank in Washington, DC — focuses on the rising share of government transfers…
September 30, 2024
The Central Trump and Harris Dangers Are Monstrous
Both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris presidencies would engender political and policy outcomes monstrous in very different ways. Donald Trump is a thoroughly despicable man, a narcissist, and abject liar devoid of dignity and incapable of consistent behavior worthy of the presidency. Even now when a George Costanza-type “opposite” suppression of his instincts would advance…